Win or lose, leadership must follow

In two days, voters will end the contentious campaign over Proposition D, the sales tax/government reform measure intended to rescue San Diego’s battered finances. But win or lose, the real work of creating financial stability at City Hall will have just begun. And, win or lose, the leadership response from Mayor Jerry Sanders and the City Council must be the same.

No matter the voters’ verdict Tuesday night, the reality is that neither the passage of Proposition D, nor its rejection, will in and of itself eliminate the city’s chronic structural deficit, now estimated at far more than $100 million a year when all employee pension and retiree health care costs are included.

Proposition D was never intended to be anything other than a five-year bridge to a time when the structural deficit will be eliminated – maybe. Adopt tough pension, health care and outsourcing reforms now and the deficit can be eliminated. The half-cent sales tax increase that would kick in when the 10 reforms are launched – possibly shortly before the state sales tax is reduced by a percentage point in June – would simply make the annual budgetary pain during those five years easier to swallow.

So passage of Proposition D would simply mean the mayor and council have to live up to the “contract” that Sanders said they made with voters in adopting a resolution to enact reforms averaging at least $73 million a year. That’s a lot of reforming to do between Election Day and next spring, the target timetable for implementing the tax increase.

And defeat of Proposition D would simply make the same job that much tougher. Put aside the campaign rhetoric about the defeat of “D” leaving the mayor and council no choice but to slash and burn the police, fire, library and parks budgets. There is a choice, and it is to pursue those same reforms with even greater diligence.

A Union-Tribune poll published Oct. 24 showed that only 22 percent of respondents think city services are adequately funded now. Of the nearly 50 percent who did not think services are adequately funded, overwhelming numbers think the funding should be higher. The survey also showed strong percentages believing that city employee pay should be lower and that their pensions are too generous.

Those results are a road map – a guide for how to get from the annual budget nightmares that are rapidly eating away at our communal quality of life to the point where we can pay for the municipal services we want.

San Diegans want a City Hall that is lean, prudent, responsible and managed by people who work together to solve problems.

Win or lose on Proposition D, that is the kind of management and leadership that must begin on Wednesday morning.